Previous "News/What's New"

24^th Feb After over seven years in Hong Kong I've returned to the UK. Until I have a permanent address the best way to contact me is by e-mail at johnb@hk.super.net.

1^st Feb I've released a new version of my set of levels for Avara, adding one new level. This is the first update for a long time and is almost certainly the last.

28^th Jan I've updated my list of items for sale, mostly with new, cheaper, prices.

20^th Jan I've updated Set View Options' documentation with information about a new option added in Mac OS 8.1.

12^th Jan Recently I've been working on revamping the web site for the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. Please check it out and use the mailto link on the main index to let us know what you think of it.

17^th Jan I have a number of items for sale, including Macintosh and compatible computers, Mac programming books and peripherals.

12^th Jan 1998 The next HKMUG meeting is on Tuesday January 13^th at 7:00pm, in the Seven Seas Lounge of The Mariners Club, TST. This month's demos will include QCODE Chinese Input Method and Claris's latest software.

8^th Dec Set View Options has been mentioned in MacWorld (Page 128 of the Jan '98 issue).

14^th Nov I've added another screenshot of The Red Project.

11^th Nov Other things I've been working on recently: I wrote the English documentation for Hong Kong Supernet's Internet installer for Mac OS, a new installer prepared for this year's Macworld Hong Kong. I've also been helping Paul Kelly keep his online record of his world travels up to date.

11^th Nov (Update) The next HKMUG meeting is later today, Tuesday November 11^th at 7:00pm, in the Seven Seas Lounge of The Mariners Club, TST. This month I will be demonstrating a 3DFX based 3D accelerator card, using Quake, Myth and a couple of my own programs, on a Power Computing clone. Other demos include Apple's new QuickTime VR authoring kit by Apple and the new multi-lingual e-mail software Zi Mail.

28^th Oct This year's MacWorld Hong Kong takes place from October 30^th to November 1^st (Thursday - Saturday) at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wanchai. I will be helping at the HKMUG booth on Thursday and Saturday.

14^th Oct The next HKMUG meeting is on Tuesday, October 14^th (today) at 7:00pm, in the Conference Room of The Mariners Club, TST. Demos this month include Martin Hash's 3D Animation and TurboTV.

10^th Sep I've put up a page about The Red Project.

8^th Sep The next HKMUG meeting is on Tuesday, September 9^th at 7:00pm, in the Conferernce Room of The Mariners Club, TST. Demos this month include the game Command & Conquer and Apple's hot new PowerMac 9600/350.

17^th Aug I've released a 3DMF viewer for FirstClass.

10^th Aug I've (again) updated the documentation of Set View Options, my AppleScript droplet to automate the (tedious) process of setting MacOS 8 Finder window View Options.

8^th Aug I've added a page of my favorite things.

6^th Aug I've removed my daily and monthly web stats pages from this index as they are no longer being updated since the web server logs were removed. They're still online as sample pages for my analysis program QNDstat.

6^th Aug The next HKMUG meeting is on Tuesday, August 12^th at 7:00pm, in the Conferernce Room of The Mariners Club, TST. Demos this month include Mac OS 8 and the Be OS for PowerMac.

21^st Jul Based on user feedback I've significantly expanded and clarified the documentation for Set View Options. The droplet itself is unchanged.

18^th Jul I've created an AppleScript droplet, Set View Options, which automates the (tedious) process of setting MacOS 8 Finder window View Options. On this page I've started using Cascading Style Sheets with my pages.

8^th Jul I've updated my unofficial hk.super.net WWW FAQ page, to reflect changes to the server and the Web in general.

8^th Jul The next HKMUG meeting is on Tuesday, July 8^th (today), at 7:00pm, in the Conferernce Room of The Mariners Club, TST. Demos this month include the UMAX Pulsar 2330 DP (Dual Processor) Mac clone, Virtual PC, and I may be demoing the XClaim VR video & multimedia card. Note the new URL for the HK Macintosh User Group web pages: http://www.hkmug.org.hk/

10^th Jun Version 1.2 of my Avara Plugin Scorer is out.

10^th Jun I've completely re-written the search program for the Asia Times web site, so it now runs a lot faster.

10^th May The next HKMUG meeting is on Tuesday, May 13^th, 7:00pm, in the Conferernce Room of The Mariners Club, TST. Demos this time include Fractal Design Expression, the game "Allied General", Apple's QuickTake 200 and Mac shareware. If you've been unable to log on to the HKMUG BBS recently the server has been offline for most of the last four days, reportedly because it doesn't like the humid weather.

10^th May Tempest, the BBS server I started in September 1992, closed down on the 30^th of April. The announcement is here.

20^th Apr I've released a program I've been working on for a while: The Blue Project - The Crab. There's also a page of pictures and a page of 3DMF Models.

20^th Apr I've developed a personal advertisment system for the GayAsia web site. It's a techinically interesting system (programmed to operate in three languages, is searchable, has a web based administrative interface), but you can't see much if you visit the site, which is adult orientated and requires subscription to access most areas.

20^th Apr I've completely reprogrammed Asia, Inc. Online's financial data system. The data looks much the same as before but it has a completely different database back-end which makes it much easier to manage the data and potentially much more flexible.

20^th Apr I've also completely reprogrammed Asia, Inc. Online's online conferences. It has a new interface, which makes it easier to understand and use, and with a new database back-end it uses a fraction of the resources of the old system, is much easier to manage and much more flexible.

20^th Apr Tempest, the BBS server I maintain, will close on the 30^th of April. See here for the announcement. Anyone who has an account on the server should log on before this date if they want to make sure they don't lose mail due when this happens.

6^th Mar The program for the daily and monthly stats pages is not working at the moment, as they can't find all the files they need to work. I've contacted Supernet to find out what's happened to the file so I can get the program working again.

27^th Feb - The whole of the next HKMUG meeting is dedicated to the AGM, so there will be no demos. The meeting is on Tuesday, March 11^th, on the 2^nd floor of the Mariners Club, TST, starting at 7:00pm.

27^th Feb Some research I did on Motorola's future "G-3" PPC processor appear on yesterday's O'Grady's PowerPage.

7^th Feb - The source code for plugin scorer for Avara is online, together with some notes.

5^th Feb - Version 1.1 of my plugin scorer for Avara is available.

3^rd Feb - I'm doing a presentation on Macintosh programming with Metrowerks' Codewarrior at the next HKMUG meeting. The meeting is on Tuesday, February 11^th, on the 2^nd floor of the Mariners Club, TST, starting at 7:00pm.

6^th Jan - I've added a page about my new plugin scorer for Avara, and broken out information about my Avara levels into another new page, leaving my Avara page as an index to my Avara related software.

6^th Jan 1997 - The next HKMUG meeting is at 7:00 on Tuesday, January 14^th, on the 2^nd floor of the Mariners Club, TST. This month's demos will include Nissus.

16^th Nov - I was on TV earlier today, (not for the first time, but the first time without a headdress and antlers), on Apple's 'Macworld Expo HK 1996' advertising feature, around 7:10 on ATV World. If you saw it I was the first of the four rouges (all HKMUG members) evagelicising the Mac at the end.

11^th Nov - Asia Times is now up and running online. The news and indices of the site are generated daily using a custom system I developed with UserLand Frontier.

11^th Nov - The next HKMUG meeting is at 7:00 on Thursday, November 14^th, on the 2^nd floor of the Mariners Club, TST. This month's demos will include the pretty cool Apple Advanced Chinese Input Suite.

20^th Oct - The Avara page has been updated and expanded.

11^th Oct - The first version of the Macintosh HK Internet Installer is now ready. It can be downloaded from the HKMUG BBS and is available on the HKMUG MacWorld CD ROM. Sorry there's no URL to download it, but we haven't finalised how it will be distributed, apart from by the above routes.

11^th Oct - Macworld Expo Hong Kong 1996 will take place from 31^st October - 2^nd November at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. I'll be there for most of the three days. If you want to find me there try the HK Mac User Group booth.

11^th Oct - I've added a page about Avara and the levels I've created for it. I've renamed and moved the Project X page in line with the name/nature of the technology. It's now called HotSauce and has been moved to the Web Resources index.

11^th Oct - I've just finished developing a new conferencing system for the APEC Business Forum Web Site. I'm quite pleased with it as it's simple but makes use of a variety of web technologies.

11^th Oct - There's a picture of me at September's HKMUG meeting here. I'm the unshaven one on the left.

18^th Sep - Three new pages, including two Project X pages.

14^th Sep - The next HKMUG meeting is at 7:00 on Thursday, October 14^th, again in the Conference Room of the Mariner's Club, TST.

14^th Sep - Four new pages online, including a biographical page and some old home pages

6^th Sep - The HKMUG is currently working on the Macintosh HK Internet Installer, intended to help Hong Kong Mac users onto the Internet with a minimum of trouble. We are looking for help from ISPs and other Mac users in HK; if you think you can help please visit the web pages or contact Arthur or myself

6^th Sep 1996 - The HKMUG is moving ! The next meeting is on Thursday, September 12^th, in the Conference Room of the Mariner's Club, TST. Highlights include yet another demo by yours truly, this time showing off the capabilties of SimpleText ! The fun starts at 7:00, hope to see you there !

© John Blackburne, johnb@hk.super.net, 18^th October 1998